Fighting fires. Sucking smoke. Working hard in an inferno of heat. You’ve been on assignment for four days and you have 10 more to go. You’re ready for a hot shower and solid food, you’re tired. But you’re still smiling. You’re a wildland firefighter.
There’s many different reasons why a person would get into fighting wildfires, but no matter how you got there, everyone remembers their first fire.
Forrest Towne is a senior forestry technician for the Navajo Region Helitack Crew, based in Fort Defiance, Arizona. He was 18-years-old when he went on his first fire assignment.
“We had a local fire here — it was my first fire, they called it the Wide Ruins Fire. I got the call and showed up. In an hour we were out there and I was sucking in smoke and my eyes were burning. I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m getting myself into,’ but it worked out,” Towne said.